Loneliness for His Presence

So, we adopted some strategies to help us buy for one another. Our earliest solution was to go through the mall separately and shop for ourselves but leave the choice to buy it up to the other person. Then, along came Amazon shopping lists – shopping from the recliner! My other method is to call my daughter for suggestions or confirmation. These methods have closed the gap of uncertainty and kept me out of the doghouse.

Every one of us has someone on our Christmas list that is hard to buy for. Can you imagine the Magi as they tried to figure out what gift to bring to Jesus? They may have thought their gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh were the best that could be offered, but the very Creator of the entire universe had come to earth as a child. Heaven is paved with gold and gates are made from pearl. This doesn’t mean Jesus isn’t interested in our gifts – He is. It is just that what we give Jesus may not be so perfect. Wonderfully, Jesus takes our imperfect gift in The Gift Exchange and gives us back His perfect gifts!

There is no way that my gift will be able to measure up to God’s gifts. In fact, the gifts that we bring to God may not even seem like gifts, but He receives them anyway.

The Gift Exchange

My Gift of Loneliness

Psalm 102:2–7 NIV

2 Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly. 3 For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. 4 My heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food. 5 In my distress I groan aloud and am reduced to skin and bones. 6 I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. 7 I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof.

Psalm 102:2

His Gift of His Presence

That is how loneliness creeps into our lives. At first we think we can handle ourselves until it begins to show its fangs. The psalm is the only poem in the entire book that is attributed to “an afflicted man”:

It is likely that someone here this morning is struggling or has struggled with loneliness. There are many reasons for it:

when I am in distress.

Turn your ear to me;

when I call, answer me quickly.

3 For my days vanish like smoke;

my bones burn like glowing embers.

4 My heart is blighted and withered like grass;

I forget to eat my food.

5 In my distress I groan aloud

and am reduced to skin and bones.

6 I am like a desert owl,

Genesis 2:18 NIV

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

like an owl among the ruins.

7 I lie awake; I have become

like a bird alone on a roof. [1]

It is likely that someone here this morning is struggling or has struggled with loneliness. There are many reasons for it:

- You’ve lost your spouse. One of the toughest changes to navigate in life is the death of a spouse. It is usually not one that is planned for, welcomed, or many times even anticipated. It makes its appearance either suddenly or gradually, steals our loved one from us, then disappears leaving us to deal with the realities of grieving, loneliness, memories, making decisions alone and all the other adjustments that come as a result of living life without our partner. As someone once said, a married person is “only one heartbeat away from singleness.”

Psalm 68:5–6 NIV

5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. 6 God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Psalm 68:5 NIV

5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

- You’ve been divorced

- Your circumstances have changed (health, finances, location, friends, viewed negatively)

Psalm 68:5–6 NIV

- You’ve had a loss of intimacy in relationships with others

- Your age-and-stage is new

- You’re simply feeling vulnerable

Hebrews 13:5

Psalm 68:5

Hebrews 13:5–6 NIV

5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” 6 So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

Loneliness is real – especially at this time of the year.

Psalm 68:5-6

· Overall, one-fifth of adults said they regularly or often feel lonely. And despite stereotypes of a lonely elderly population, the report indicates loneliness afflicts more young and middle-aged people than seniors. A quarter of Millennials and 24 percent of Gen-Xers said they were lonely, compared to 13 percent of Baby Boomers and 6 percent of Elders.

· Men were more likely than women to say they were lonely (22 percent vs. 15 percent).

· Loneliness can take a serious toll on both mental and physical health. Only 12 percent of those who have daily in-person interactions with others report having fair to poor mental health, compared to just over half (51 percent) of those who claim never to have in-person interactions with others. According to the report, loneliness is even deadlier than obesity, and has the same effect on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Hebrews 13:5 NIV

5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

· Although there is a stereotype of older people being lonely, feelings of isolation actually decrease from younger to older generations. The average loneliness score is 48.3 for Gen Z; 45.3 for millennials; 45.1 for Generation X; 42.4 for boomers; and only 38.6 among those 72 or older — nearly 10 points lower than the score for the youngest adults.

Hebrews 13:5

· In a society where loneliness is the new norm, it is crucial that churches remain places of community. By reaching the lost with Christ’s love and fostering fellowship among Christians, the local church can help draw isolated individuals into a purposeful network of relationships.

What an amazing promise! “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” If this is true (which it is), we can be alone without being lonely! Jesus is with us and desires to be our friend, brother, and Savior. The Holy Spirit is a cloak for us to wear and becomes our comforter, teacher, and helper.

I told you that not all our gifts are pretty. But just like those around us who love us, Jesus receives our gift of loneliness and gives us something amazing in return – His Presence!

His Gift of His Presence

Loneliness is not part of God’s plan for human beings. Early on in the Biblical record we learn this:

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

I heard a preacher say that men tend to get in trouble when they are alone and women tend to get in trouble when they are together. I think there is some truth to that, but the point is, God doesn’t want us to be alone. God is interested in relationship and community.

King David recognized this fact and recorded it in .

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,

is God in his holy dwelling.

6 God sets the lonely in families,

he leads out the prisoners with singing;

but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Paul emphasized the promise from the Torah to the Israelites and passed it on to each of us:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;

never will I forsake you.”

6 So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.

What can mere mortals do to me?”

The Bible expresses it another way as well. One that we often overlook until Christmas.

Jesus is Emmanuel

Our Christmas stories this year will feature a passage from :

Matthew 1:22–23 NIV

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

Matthew 1:22 NIV

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

The fact that He is with us should excite us, because it says that

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” w (which means “God with us”).

The fact that He is with us should excite us, because it says that

1. His presence extends even to our very hearts. The Spirit of God lives in us:

Romans 8:9–11 NIV

9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

What a difference it makes in your body when the Holy Spirit lives within. You experience new life, and even your physical faculties take on a new dimension of experience. When evangelist D. L. Moody described his conversion experience, he said: “I was in a new world. The next morning the sun shone brighter and the birds sang sweeter... the old elms waved their branches for joy, and all nature was at peace.” Life in Christ is abundant life. (Wiersbe, W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor)

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. NLT

2. His presence protects us.

Dr. Tony Campolo says that when he was a boy growing up in a congested and bustling city, his mother arranged for a teenage girl who lived nearby to walk home with him at the end of the day. For this, she was paid a nickel a day. But Tony rebelled in the second grad and told his mother, “I’ll walk myself to school, an, if you give me a nickel a week, I will be extra careful. You can keep the other twenty cents and we’ll all be better off.

After a period of pleading and begging, little Tony finally got his way. For the next two years he walked himself back and forth to school. It was an eight block walk with many streets to cross, but he was careful and didn’t talk to strangers or get distracted along the way.

Years later at a family party, he bragged about his independence and reminded his family of how he had taken care of himself as a boy. His mother laughed and added the rest of the story. “Did you really think you were alone?” she said. “Every morning when you left for school, I left with you. I walked behind you all the way. When you got out of school at 3:30 in the afternoon, I was there. I always kept myself hidden, but I was there and I followed you all the way home. I just wanted to be there in case you needed me.”

That is the character of a good mother. And guess what? That is the character of God. He is always there, just hidden, waiting to be asked when we come to the end of ourselves.

His Gift of Presence is About Relationship

There is no need to be lonely, not with the availability of Jesus. He will never leave or forsake us.

It fascinates me that as we walk through the Bible, over and over again God desires to have relationship with us.

- Beginning at the Garden of Eden

- The promise to Adam that his seed what crush the serpents head

- The promise to Abraham that through him the nations would be blessed

- The exodus and covenant with Moses and the people of Israel

- The invitation to the mountain

- The tabernacle in the camp

- The prophetic promises

- The incarnation of Jesus Christ

- The promise of the Holy Spirit

- The outpouring of the Holy Spirit

- The soon coming rapture of the church

- The Second Coming of Christ

- A New Heaven and a New Earth with Christ

All of these suggest relationship with Jesus! What a gift! All we have to do is receive it.

[1] The New International Version. (2011). (). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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